Year 2, Setting New Goals

A lot has been going on at JFS as I continue to work to improve and expand the services JFS provides to the Survivor Community. I am happy to report that in the just over a year I have been working at JFS that we are helping an additional 207 Survivors. That is a huge increase in the amount of people we are helping in just a year!

A couple of weeks ago I sent out the 2nd ever JFS Holocaust Survivor Newsletter which allows us to keep Survivors in the community up to date on what services we are providing, especially new programs, and it keeps them informed on any changes to restitution funds that have occurred.

Another project I have been working on is assisting with the completion of Polish Pension applications for Survivors. So far we have filled out, and mailed over 70 applications with a few more on the way. This has been an immense undertaking that would not have been possible without the tireless work by several people in the office.

I have also continued my work with the Alpha Omega program. To date we have served/ are serving 20 clients who have either completed, or are nearing completion, free dental work to restore function and eliminated pain. This program has acted as a lifeline for the Survivor community and has allowed them to received free dental care for a wide variety of problems which impact their daily lives.

Additionally, I have been working on developing new programs to provide hearing aid and vision assistance to Survivors. These are two areas that are in need of programming to assist low income Survivors, and I am excited to be in on the ground floor of these programs. 

Finally, I have been working on developing a new training that will educate the care giver agencies we work with on the needs of the Survivor community they serve, as well as the needs of the broader Jewish community they serve. Additionally, I am working on converting my training series from my first year as  VISTA into an online training each new hire can take in order to educate them on the experiences of the Survivor community.

Until next time!

Coming Full Circle

It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to hop on here and update everyone about what I’ve been up to. I have a lot to go over, but I’ll try to be brief! Following my return from Germany I hit the ground running to get everything caught up at work. I have continued my work with the Alpha Omega dental program and we have helped a total of 19 low-income Holocaust Survivors access free dental services. Some survivors haven’t been to a dentist in decades, and others simply can’t afford to pay for the expensive crowns, dentures, and bridgework that is required when you reach a certain age. Overall this program has been successful in helping these Survivors gain access to dental services, and regain function and eliminate their pain.

Following my trip and lecture in Germany I was invited to work on a PhD at the University of Giessen! I can work on the bulk of the dissertation here in the U.S. while I’m working at JFS. I am very excited to start this next phase of my life. I am currently working on narrowing down my topic, but I do know it will be based in some way on Metro-Detroit Survivor testimony and remembrance. Along with this I have one more big announcement. I have agreed to stay on at JFS for a second year as the AmeriCorps VISTA Volunteer for Holocaust Survivor Services. I officially started my 2^nd term of service at the beginning of September and I am already working on new projects.

Following my return from Germany I presented a lecture on the Nazi Death Camps, which I had just visited and was able to include information I learned while visiting these sites. I also held a training on the fate of the Hungarian Jews, and next week I will hold the final booster, which will focus on the hidden children and rescuers during the Holocaust.    

In the next year I am working on several exciting projects. In addition to continuing the dental program I am working on creating programs modeled off of the dental program that will provide glasses and hearing aids for low-income Survivors. These are the next two most expensive items for low-income Survivors and they are very expensive for JFS to cover with emergency financial assistance. In addition to this I am also working on a 6 hour training on genocide that I have been asked to present for social workers, home care givers, etc. in the community. Finally, within the next week I am hoping to mail out the second ever Holocaust Survivor Newsletter. As soon as some final tweaks are made it will be on its way to almost 600 people, making it our largest newsletter distribution/ outreach effort to date.

At the end of my first year as VISTA I was fortunate enough to be able to travel to Philadelphia to meet with staff from AJFCA, and JFCS Philly. We had a great meeting that allowed us to talk about challenges we face at our organizations, innovative ways each organization has found to reach out to the community, and we were able to have a chance to realize that some problems are universal and we may be able to work together to find a comprehensive solution. Following this meeting I had a chance to meet with some of the new VISTAs serving this specific project around the U.S. It was great to see a new batch of VISTAs ready to get to work to help some of the most vulnerable in our country. I look forward to collaborating with them on future projects, and seeing what unique perspectives they bring to the table.

I will try to be better about posting more regularly now that I’m not trying to play catch up every couple of weeks! Until next time…

Year 2 VISTAs with AJFCA staff

Town Halls, Teaching, and Teeth

Hello everyone! It’s been a while since I last posted, things have been very busy! So at the end of March I held my final town hall event for the children of Survivors to find out if they had any additional input in the needs of their parents, or others in the community. Overall, I think the event was a success. It allowed us to listen to the community, and also educate the children on the services we provide. As the parents age, it is important that we reach out to their children so they know what services JFS provides. With the conclusion of the town hall I have been able to officially finalize the needs assessment report.

In the meantime I was able to finalize, and send out, the first ever JFS Holocaust Survivor Newsletter. The newsletter keeps the Survivor community informed about happenings at JFS that are relevant to them. While many younger clients can check out our facebook page, or are on our eblast list, most survivors are not. This newsletter will allow them to know what restitution funds are available, what services we offer, and what JFS is doing to improve services for the Survivor community. I was able to mail out about 500 newsletters to our clients and distribute additional copies into the community.  We have had an overwhelming response from the community, with lots of calls coming in from Survivors asking about new programs that we have started at JFS. I am excited that we can engage on this level with the community, and possibly connect them to new programs and resources that can help them age in their homes.

The other big thing I’ve been working on for the last few months has been a large all staff training event. I’ve been developing an interactive and engaging presentation to educate the staff at JFS about the Holocaust in time for Yom HaShoah, which was a couple weeks ago. I have always been very passionate about Holocaust education, and was honored to be asked to speak with my colleagues about an event that had a huge impact on Jewish history, and really affects what we do here at JFS. The presentation went incredibly well and all of the technology cooperated. I was able to integrate pictures, videos, and live polling in the presentation to help make it more interactive and interesting. It is a fine line to walk in Holocaust education between making the content accessible and engaging without trivializing the history.

Since the lecture I’ve been hard at work. I’ve been coordinating a new pilot program in Metro-Detroit. The Alpha Omega Henry Schein Cares Holocaust Survivors Oral Health Program. The goal of the program is to help the most financially vulnerable in the Survivor community with the express goals of eliminating pain and restoring function.  So far I have been able to refer out about 8 Survivors who are receiving amazing care from many volunteer dentists in our community. Many people don’t think about the challenges associated with having oral health problems, but there are many and they can impact many parts of your life. Hopefully this program will allow those with the most need to live their lives with one less problem as they age. 

One last thing... today is my mother's birthday. Happy Birthday Mom!!

Seeing the Impact of Service

Welcome back everybody! A lot has been happening here at JFS. I have begun work on an additional part of the Survivor needs assessment. I have been working on our 2G outreach effort. I have created a new survey, a flyer for advertising the town hall meeting, and a letter explaining who I am and what the needs assessment is for so when children of survivors receive the survey they aren’t wondering what is going on. Meanwhile, I have also made a lot of progress on the first ever Metro-Detroit Survivor Newsletter. The idea is that this will be a bi-annual newsletter that will keep the survivor community informed about JFS services, as well as changes to indemnification as well as new funds.

I taught myself InDesign software because that is what our PR department uses and will allow them to take over the newsletter after my year of service is complete. Once I had learned the software, I created the template for the newsletter as well as all of the content for it. I have been fortunate enough to receive feedback and support from both my supervisors and the PR department, which has helped me fine-tune the newsletter. I am hoping that within the next month I will have the newsletter completely done and we can send it to the printer, develop the digital e-blast version, and send it out to our entire mailing list. Hopefully this will get the word out into the community about the services JFS offers, as well as keep survivors up to date on the latest changes to indemnification, including several new funds that quite a few in the community may be eligible for.

I am very excited to report that so far my outreach efforts have been successful. I had to file my quarterly report to the federal government and was able to report that because of my outreach, we have taken in at least 40 new clients, which has led JFS to expand a part time (Russian speaking) position into a full time position, and they have posted an additional bi-lingual care manager.  It is exciting to get to see that what seems like small things when you are in the daily minutia of planning, development, and implementation is actually having an impact in my own community.

Beyond the newsletter, I have started a new phase of my time here at JFS. I have begun the lengthy process of developing a multi-tiered Holocaust history education program for the staff at JFS. There is a need at JFS to educate all of the staff about the history of the Holocaust, and for those that work with survivors to receive a more in-depth education on not just general history of the Holocaust, but specifics about countries, camps, and important events that survivors may have lived through and may still affect their daily lives. I’m very excited that I get to use what I learned during my Master’s Degree to help educate other people that understand the importance of Holocaust education. I am also looking into expanding this curriculum once it is developed to become a community education event for social workers and other human services groups so they too can learn about what their clients might have lived through, in order to provide more compassionate and understanding service to an aging Survivor population.

I also had the opportunity to give a talk at my co-worker’s church on Sunday in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The social justice group has a yearly event to commemorate MLK. I was asked to talk about myself, my education and trip to Rwanda, and something related to MLK. I decided to talk about the connections between the Holocaust, Jewish community, and the Civil Rights movement. I spoke about my history, my education and Rwanda trip (along with a little history of the genocide there), and then talked about this seldom acknowledged connection between the Jewish community and the Civil Rights Movement. Overall I think it went really well, and I was so honored to be invited to talk and have such a great response from the audience. 

I am very excited about the new steps I am taking and absolutely love the work I get to do. It is nice to see things come together and the impact it has on the community.